HORIZON NEWS

December 2008 - The newsletter of FIVE STAR IDC CENTRE New Horizons Dive Centre

Thank you
2008 has been a great year for diving both in the UK and abroad. We may not have had the best weather here in the UK but that didn’t spoil the fun. During 2008 we have been from Plymouth on the south coast to Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands, which have provided an amazing mix of wrecks; reefs and marine life. Many of our experienced UK divers have continued to enjoy these trips and many new divers have been introduced to UK waters. Many have been surprised and impressed by what they have seen. Foreign trips have also been well supported with a number of visits to a number of different Red Sea destinations visited along with trips to Borneo and South Africa and Mozambique. During the year we have taught many new divers and many of you have continued your education with us.

All the staff at New Horizons would like to thank you for your loyal support throughout the year and for making our jobs, diving with you, so enjoyable.

People come and people go...
2009 will see some changes for New Horizons. As many of you will know Scott left New Horizons at the end of November to start a new job (tinkering with mobile phones!). In addition to this Greg, after spending around 5 years in the dive industry, is leaving to join the Army in January. We wish both of them well in their new roles and don’t be surprised if you bump into them in the future!
Roger and Sue will be holding the fort and from January we will have a new full time instructor – Kathryn Oldham. Many of you will already know Kathryn who has been diving with New Horizons for a number of years and was previously a very active part-time instructor.

Change to Social Evenings
The social evenings throughout 2008 have proved to be a great success and these will be continuing at Macclesfield Rugby Club at 20:00 but we have a new date for you diaries! We will now be meeting on the first Wednesday of the month. The first social of 2009 will be on Wednesday 7th January. Remember that you are all welcome to attend these fun/informative evenings.
Check out the website for all the 2009 dates.

Christmas Opening Times
New Horizons will have the following opening hours over the Christmas period:
Wednesday 24th from 09:00-13:00.
Thursday 25th, Friday 26th and Saturday 27th – Closed.
Sunday 28th from 09:00 – 17:00.
Monday 29th Closed.
Tuesday 30th 09:00 – 17:00,
Wednesday 31st 09:00 – 17:00.
Thursday 1st January – Closed.
We will reopen as normal on Saturday 2nd January.

Dive Courses for 2009
Our full programme of courses for 2009 is near completion and dates will be available on the website and individual sheets for all the courses will be available in the shop. As always we are offering a full range of courses from Open Water all the way through to Instructor programmes – and Seal Team/Master Seal Team for the youngsters. We are also offering many speciality courses including Wreck, Deep, Navigation, NITROX, Underwater Photography and the National Geographic Speciality. Information on all these courses are on our website www.new-horizon.co.uk/courses

SPECIAL OFFER ON ADVANCED OPEN WATER AND RESCUE COURSES
We all know how important it is to keep our dive skills fresh and to continue our dive education to learn more skills. If you are thinking of completing either or both of these courses during 2009 and pay your deposit before the end of January you will receive the course manual free of charge. Just give the shop a call or pop in for a chat about these courses.

Advanced Open Water
This is a great course to develop your diving and open up more diving opportunities to you. It helps you to develop your diving skills with the guidance of Instructors and Divemasters. You will do dives such as deep, navigation, multilevel, peak performance buoyancy, and wreck. Having completed this course you with be qualified to dive to 30 metres, which will increase the number of sites you can dive and also the number of trips open to you.

Rescue Diver
Open to Advanced Open Water divers with a current first aid certificate, this course enables divers to increase their confidence in self rescue skills; to develop techniques for rescuing others and to learn how to manage emergency situations.

Recompression Chamber trip
Sunday 8th February at Murrayfield Hospital, Wirral. Learn a little more about diving safety and decompression illness before participating on a 50 metre dry dive and experience the effects of nitrogen narcosis. Places limited to 20 people – please book early with payment of £25 in cash. Only open to divers, minimum age 16. Remember to take your logbook to record the dive.

sharksfourus.nhdc
by Liz Pentreath

On my key ring there is a Turkish proverb which reads: 'No road is long with good company'. How true this is of the trip to South Africa and Mozambique in November 2008. The company, in this case, includes the dive group of 4 from NHDC (Pete, our leader par excellence, Eileen Furr, Frank Nicholson and myself) an additional 4 divers, all Scots, and Shona and Craig of Scuba Addicts who organized everything so well from diving to dinner! For those of you who know Becky Redford, she is working for a dive centre near Scuba Addicts and came out with us a couple of times. Last, but not least, the ‘company’ includes the sharks who joined us over the course of the two weeks - raggies (sand tiger sharks), black tips, duskies, hammerhead, tiger, leopard, grey reef and the magnificent whale sharks - fantastic close encounters! The whale shark was my personal favourite - they swim in shallow water, and we were in between deep dives, so a snorkel and fins was all we needed to swim with this magnificent creature.

The only notable absence was the manta rays, and even the BBC was disappointed by this as they were out in force in a helicopter wanting to film divers on the sites where they are normally found. But not this year - a research group in Mozambique has been looking out for them and noted their atypical absence over several weeks. Where have all the manta rays gone??

Sightings of devil rays, eagle rays and round ribbontail rays helped to ameliorate the situation as did the humpback whales seen on our first rib trip out, the odd nudibranch, potato bass, mantis shrimp, schools of kingfish and batfish, triggerfish, trumpetfish, boxfish, morays, scorpionfish and the AMAZING banded pipefish, to mention but a few!!

Whether the weather had anything to do with the manta rays, it certainly interfered with our diving for three days which led us to conjecture that perhaps November is not prime diving time - according to Shona and Craig, the end of January and February are the best bet weather-wise and the best time to see the summer season sharks - tigers, bulls and hammerheads. This led to an oft repeated resolve to return in January 2010 when Shona and Craig will have their dive lodge fully operational and the wind will be less of a nuisance. Also on the cards is the sardine run in June/July 2011 (not 2010 because of the football)!

We missed our rib launches those days, riding through the surf - by the end of the trip we were so laid back that we hardly had to hold on, doing Mexican waves to celebrate our new found skill (mind you the foot straps helped keep us in one place). On the days when we were blown out, Shona and Craig took us to various places in and around Durban - a crocodile farm, an aquarium, shopping - we even went to the movies and Pete, after rubbing shoulders with pensioners for a week and seeing the distinct advantage of being a mature age when buying tickets, couldn't resist becoming a pensioner himself to save a few rand! The food and accommodation were fantastic, both in S. Africa and in Mozambique (well, some might draw the line at the bat fauna found at Casa Lisa, but hey, aren't we all nature lovers?). The road trip up to Tofo Bay in Mozambique was fascinating (we passed by a training area for rats learning to detect land mines) - steak, pineapple, coconut, fish, avocado, gin, good South African wine, tequila sunrises, barbecues (called braai), buffets - who could ask for more?

To while away the time before our flight back we visited Kruger National Park where in the space of one afternoon we saw all the Big Five bar the big cats and dried out our diving gear in a lovely lodge where we feasted on our last barbecue and fed zebra and bushbuck by hand (the drought meant that there was hardly any grass for them to eat in the bush). Needless to say our special relationship with the rain washed out the next morning's safari so we prepared for the homeward journey instead. The road was long, but the company kept it sweet.

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For details on these or any other events or for advice on gear sales, diving insurance or unaccompanied dive travel, please contact:

New Horizons Snorkel & Dive Centre, 51 - 53, Park Lane, Macclesfield, Cheshire, SK11 6TX

Tel: 01625 611108
Fax: 01625 611969
info@new-horizon.co.uk
www.new-horizon.co.uk